Dissolution

I had been surprised when Cromwell sent a letter ordering me to Scarnsea to supervise the process. I had heard little from him since making a brief visit to Westminster to discuss my report in December. He told me then that he had endured an uncomfortable half-hour with the king when Henry learned that mayhem and murder at a religious house had been kept from him for weeks, and that his new commissioner's assistant had absconded with the old commissioner's killer. Perhaps the king had boxed his chief minister's ears, as I had heard he was wont to do; at all events Cromwell's manner had been brusque and he dismissed me without thanks. His favour, I had taken it, was withdrawn.

Although I still held the formal title of commissioner I was not needed, the Augmentations officers were more than capable of carrying out the work, and I wondered whether Cromwell had thought to make me revisit the scene of those terrible experiences as a punishment for that uncomfortable half-hour of his. It would have been characteristic.

Justice Copynger, now the king's tenant of the former monastery lands, stood a little way off with another man, looking over plans. I approached him, passing a couple of Augmentations officers carrying armfuls of books from the library and heaping them up in the courtyard, ready for burning.

Copynger grasped my hand. 'Commissioner, how are you? We have better weather now than when you were last here.'

'Indeed. Spring is almost come, though that is a cold wind from the sea. How do you find the abbot's house?'

'I have settled in most happily. Abbot Fabian kept it in good repair. When the monastery is down I will have a fine view over the Channel.' He waved towards the monks' cemetery, where men were busy digging up the headstones. 'See, over there I am making a paddock for my horses; I bought the monks' whole stable at a good price.'

'I hope you have not put Augmentations men to that work, Sir Gilbert,' I said with a smile. Copynger had been ennobled at Christmas, touched on the shoulder by a sword held by the king himself; Cromwell needed loyal men in the shires more than ever now.

'No, no, those are my men, paid by me.' He gave me a haughty look. 'I was sorry you did not wish to stay with me while you are here.'

'This place has unhappy memories. I am better in the town, I hope you will understand.'

'Very well, sir, very well.' He nodded condescendingly. 'But you will dine with me later, I hope. I would like to show you the plans my surveyor here has drawn up; we are going to turn some of the monastery outhouses into sheep pens once the main buildings are down. That will be a spectacle, eh? Only a few days now.'

'It will indeed. If you will excuse me for now.' I bowed and left him, wrapping my coat around me against the wind.

I went through the door to the claustral buildings. Inside, the cloister walk was dirty and muddy from the passage of many booted feet. The auditor from Augmentations had set himself up in state in the refectory, where his men brought him a constant stream of plate and gilded statues, gold crosses and tapestries, copes and albs and even the monks' bedding – everything that might have value in the auction to be held in two days' time.

Master William Glench sat in a refectory stripped of its furnishings but filled with boxes and chests, his back to a roaring fire, discussing an entry in his great ledger with a scrivener. He was a tall, thin man with spectacles and a fussy manner; a whole raft of such people had been taken on at Augmentations over the winter. I introduced myself and Glench rose and bowed, after carefully marking the place in his book.

'You seem to have everything well organized,' I said.

He nodded portentously. 'Everything, sir, down to the very pots and pans in the kitchens.' His manner reminded me momentarily of Edwig; I suppressed a shudder.

'I see they are preparing to burn the books. Is that necessary? Might they not have some value?'

He shook his head firmly. 'No, sir. All the books are to be destroyed; they are instruments of papist worship. There's not one in honest English.'

I turned and opened a chest at random. It was full of ornamentation from the church. I lifted out a finely carved gold chalice. It was one of those Edwig had thrown into the fish pond after Orphan's body, to make people think her a runaway thief. I turned it over in my hands.

'Those are not to be sold,' Glench said. 'All the gold and silver is to go to the Tower mint for melting down. Sir Gilbert tried to buy some pieces. He says the ornamentation is fine and so it may be, but they're all baubles of papist ceremony. He should know better.'

'Yes,' I said, 'he should.' I put the chalice back.

Two men carried in a big wicker basket and the scrivener began unloading habits onto the table. 'These should have been cleaned,' the scrivener said crossly. 'They'd fetch more.'